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Monthly Archives: July 2014

Welcome to the 70th edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where the summer is starting to roll by a little too quickly. July is over? It’s August already? Although after the past week, that might be a good thing. Let’s get into it…

Man, it was a really crappy week for sports news. Both locally and nationally throughout the week, the subject matter was neither fun nor lighthearted and ranged from the enraging to the simply sad.

It started on Monday (the 21st) with people nationally reacting to the remarks Tony Dungy made about not drafting Michael Sam because he would produce unwanted distractions. The comments kind of came out of nowhere but successfully produced a bunch of sports people talking and writing about the legitimacy of the beliefs and lifestyles of others. And there was PLENTY to read and hear from both sides of this “debate”. Because that’s what sports, the outlet to get away from the stresses and toils of our day-to-day lives, are for, right? This kind of thing certainly isn’t unheard of in the sports news world, but it really was just setting the tone for the remainder of the week.

News category: Annoying/Tiresome

Then the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE! announced it was suspending Ray Rice for just two games for punching his then-fiance (now wife) in the face and knocking her unconscious and dragging her limp body out of an elevator (allegedly, even though there’s video, which can be seen below). This, of course, came on the heels of the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE! suspending Josh Gordon for an entire season for smoking pot. It’s just an awful look for Roger Goddell.

I’ll let Keith Olbermann expand on this issue, scorched earth style:

So yeah, that wasn’t the most fun discussion to have in the world of sports. But people were having it, and unfortunately Stephan A. Smith was one of them. Smith, a notorious blowhard that nobody likes, thought it was important to point out that women shouldn’t provoke men if they don’t want to get beaten up.

Yeah, here’s that final quote again:

But at the same time, we also have to make sure that we learn as much as we can about elements of provocation. Not that there’s real provocation, but the elements of provocation, you got to make sure that you address them, because what we’ve got to do is do what we can to try to prevent the situation from happening in any way. And I don’t think that’s broached enough, is all I’m saying.

Michelle Beadle, who is awesome and also works at ESPN, was not down with that garbage.

So I was just forced to watch this morning's First Take. A) I'll never feel clean again B) I'm now aware that I can provoke my own beating.

And locally, on Wednesday Bronco fans woke up to news that Pat Bowlen was stepping down as owner and CEO of the Broncos to deal with his Alzheimer’s disease. Bowlen is probably the single most significant person in all of Colorado sports over the past three decades. I did not realize that the Broncos only had five losing seasons during Bowlen’s 30-year reign. That’s unbelievable. That’s great ownership.

He wanted to go out on his own terms. A horrible, frightening disease is preventing him from doing so. (Few things scare me more than the thought of a loved one coming down with Alzheimer’s.)

And some more news is also bumming me out, though it’s a little different (see: less shitty) than the aforementioned stories.

Troy Tulowitzki Tulowizki went to a Yankees game in New York on Sunday, which is really weird because Troy Tulowizki is on the Rockies and the Rockies were not playing the Yankees. Tulowizki is on the DL and was visiting a doctor in Philadelphia and wanted to watch Derek Jeter, of whom Tulowizki is a big fan, play one more time.

The visit led to a hilarious tweet and possible jab at Tulowizki from Tulowizki’s teammate, Brett Anderson:

If Derek Jeter said jump…I apparently know someone that would jump reallllly high.

Anyway, this obviously dumped a big ol’ tank of gasoline on the Tulowizki trade rumors because DID YOU KNOW DEREK JETER IS RETIRING?!

I’m not sure this is the big deal some are making it out to be, but given the circumstances, it can’t be discounted as nothing. I don’t think Tulowizki was overtly flipping a figurative bird to the front office and trying to tell the world he wants to be a Yankee. But Tulowizki is not an idiot and he’s always been a professional. He knew that sitting in the second row at Yankee stadium would set the baseball rumor mill ablaze, and I think he was cool with that.

Indeed, it’s starting to seem increasingly like Tulowizki wants to get the hell out of the Rockies organization. I don’t think there’s any way he gets traded before Thursday’s deadline, but the odds of Tulowizki leaving town in the offseason are starting to seem more and more likely.

The Rockies have done absolutely nothing this year to dispel the notion that they are a crap organization with no direction and no plan and a slim chance of building a winner. I’m guessing they’ll wait for Tulowizki to “demand a trade” so they can paint him as the bad guy. Then it will be easy for the front office to bad mouth him on his way out the door, they way they did with Ubaldo Jimenez, Dexter Fowler, and others.

It’s hard not to find myself growing frustrated after writing that paragraph. I could be jumping the gun, I suppose. Despite all of the national talk, there’s still a decent chance Tulowizki will remain with the Rockies his entire career. There may even be a decent chance that the Rockies are not all that far off from being a winning organization.

But right now, the Rockies are one of the worst teams in baseball and one of the top two players in the world seems to be growing weary of the situation as much as the rest of us.

And who can blame him?

News Category: Frustrating and just an overall bummer.

I’m ready to move on from the past week. I think we all are.

Luckily, I was able to find some stuff that didn’t suck from the last week, so let’s head…

Yes I have that song on my iPhone. Who doesn’t like the Osborne Brothers?

Happy Tuesday everybody. Thanks for reading. See ya next week.

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Welcome to the 69th edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where I’m realizing that my summer weekends are becoming quite the hinderance to this blog. I didn’t have the time or energy to produce much writing this week. And I will be going camping/drinking/boating/drinking/sleeping/drinking all of this weekend, so the abbreviated posts may continue for a little bit. That’s how things are supposed to be in the summer in Colorado, right? Also, ’round these parts there’s really not much to write about these days anyway. But the streak is still alive and well at 69 consecutive Tuesdays. Let’s get into it…

Before jumping in to the weekly departments I have a few words on NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE! training camps opening up this week.

How in the world do you people get excited about this?

I am simply not ready to talk about the Broncos. It’s like 100 degrees outside every day. We are in the absolute middle of summer. How does that get you pumped for football? The thought of leaves crunching under my feet in a crisp breeze is not even on my radar and won’t be for a couple months.

Training camp is like one tenth as interesting as the preseason. And the preseason is like one tenth as interesting as, you know, the actual season that kicks off six and a half weeks from now.

I have a long commute to and from work each day and generally enjoy listening to a variety of sports talk radio shows to help pass the time. During the times of my day that I’m not driving to work I enjoy taking the pulse of the sports world by reading various blogs and keeping up with the Sports Twittersphere. Locally, as of yesterday, people were tired of bitching about Dick Monfort and the discussion changed exclusively (and I mean EXCLUSIVELY) to the Broncos. I can’t consume that content for six and half weeks before a single game. Can’t do it!

I understand that the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE! is king of the universe, so I’m neither surprised, nor unaccustomed to this training camp ritual. When September rolls around in six weeks, I’ll be ready to roll. But it’s very strange (and quite unsettling) to hear people debating the merits of Nate Irving or Adam Gase on July 22nd. Who cares about that right now? Go on a damn hike or something, dude.

Anyway, I guess I’m the unreasonable sports fan when it comes to this. Whatever. Someone will have to text me what color shoelaces Peyton Manning is wearing on Thursday.

Offto the weekly departments…

Stud of the week:

Rory McIlroy won the Open Championship and revived all the “Replacing Tiger” talks after an impressive tourney across the pond. McIlroy is one green jacket away from the career grand slam at the age of 25. He (still) might be your guy. Anyway this is what he and his buddies did with the Claret Jug:

But the coolest story* from the sports weekend is probably that of McIlroy’s dad. From this article on ESPN.com:

Ladbrokes’ Rachel Bridge told ESPN.com that one bet — believed to be made by McIlroy’s father — was a 200-pound wager ($341) at 500/1 odds placed in 2004 for his son to win [the Open Championship] within 10 years. That bet will pay out $171,000.

Yes, Papa Mac bet on his son to when the British Open within ten years when Rory was 15. Then Rory won it the last year the bet was in effect. Here’s the tweet from the sportsbook:

CONGRATULATIONS RORY: We're paying out 180k to Rory's Dad and pals. There'll be some party at the McIlroy's tonight! pic.twitter.com/wOG7vvIygd

*Just kidding. Nothing is cooler than drinking Jagermiester out of the Claret Jug.

Douche of the week:

Certain Rockies “fans” are rooting for the team to lose 100 games, with the hope that such a dismal season will produce change in the front office. These people need to have their fan cards revoked immediately. Tanking for a draft pick is one thing, hoping your team loses based on the off chance that Crazy Dick will mix things up is on a whole ‘nother level. Are you nutjobs high-fiving each other when Tulo pulls up running down the first base line and leaves the game? (Aaaand he just hit the DL by the way. Yaayyy!) Are you toasting each other when Justin Morneau lands on the DL? Are you kooks stoked when Wilin Rosario repeatedly can’t stop pitches in the dirt? These things are frustrating to watch. At least they’re supposed to be.

The Rockies are 4-24 in their last 28 games. So don’t get me wrong I’m definitely not living and dying with every pitch. Because 1) I’m not insane. 2) I can only inflict so much self-punishment. 3) I have something resembling “a life.”

The Rockies are probably going to finish with one of the worst records in baseball. Do we really need to root for that? Shouldn’t that kind of suck? Yeah, I think it sucks.

If you know anything about Fransisco Rodney or his postgame celebration, you should find this pretty funny. Rodney did his little Usain Bolt arrow shooting thing after the eighth inning. Then he blew the save in the ninth. Gotta wait until the end of the game to bust that one out, bro.

Some guy asked A.J. Hawk to tackle him at a golf tournament. He obliged.

…But I’m glad nobody tackled Agnes McKee.

And finally, please take seven minutes and watch this moving speech from Stuart Scott if you haven’t already seen it. You’ll be glad you did:

Happy Tuesday everybody. Thanks for reading. See ya next week.

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Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @TuesWithMitch.

This guy is actually a really great owner when you stop and think about it. (Photo via Deadspin)

Dick Monfort has had a rough week. He’s doing interviews that people are not too excited about. He’s sending unkind emails to fans. He’s buying fans breakfast because they’re mad at him. Every talk show host and blog is ripping the guy to shreds. Well I want in on the fun, except I have a different stance on the matter.

I am here to defend Mr. Monfort, who when you really think about it, is actually a reasonable and awesome owner of one of the nation’s great franchises.

Let’s start with the issue that got all of this silliness started, the email Dick sent a Grand Junction fan who filled out a comment card at Coors Field after the Rockies were shut out on July 4th. The entire email read, “If product and experience that bad don’t come!”

First, as a writer I think we should take a moment to admire his word count efficiency. Too often these days we’re stuck reading something completely bogged down with unnecessary nonsense because the writer is being paid by the word. Dick Monfort ain’t got time for that and neither do I. Why respond to your paying customers like a professional and use complete sentences with punctuation and articles when IT’S JUST AN EMAIL? Those are like one step above Facebook messages and stupid 12-year-old girls send those all the time, the same way Dick sends his emails. So props to Dick for that.

Sure, you may say he replied to paying customers with unnecessary hostility and bluntness and the general tone of a completely out of touch dilrod. But have you ever been really drunk* and read like 1,000 emails and comment cards consisting of strangers calling you an idiot when you’re pretty sure you’re actually a genius that’s done nothing wrong? No? THEN WHY ARE YOU JUDGING THE MAN?! I bet it’s hard to practice restraint in that situation.

The next thing Dick did made fans even more mad. He emailed another fan (who was being awfully insensitive) the following: “By the way you talk maybe Denver doesn’t deserve a franchise, maybe time for it to find a new home. Thanks.”

People got pretty heated over this one.

You people need to just relax. The ol’ threaten-to-move-the-franchise is a classic move for all the great sports owners.* Sure, you may wonder why any owner making millions of dollars every year from high attendance numbers while consistently a putting a losing team on the field would say something so obscure and outrageous to a passionate season ticket holder.

*I don’t have any examples of this.

But this is actually a really solid strategy. It’s a great way to make sure the people who care about silly things like “baseball” and “payroll” and “wins” and “playoff appearances” and “division titles” stay away from Coors Field forever, which ensures more sales on the Party Deck from disinterested patrons at their company parties. DUH! That’s who we really want at Coors Field, you nincompoops.

He was probably just joking around anyway. Don’t be mad at him just because you don’t understand hilarious dry wit. And worst of all, nobody is even giving Dick credit for saying Thanks to the fan. That was very polite of him considering the guy who wrote the email wasn’t being very nice. Although I’m not sure why Dick decided to almost use complete sentences in this one. Seems like a wast of time.

And of course, when Dick does the right thing and randomly emails another fan who was mean to him and asks to go to breakfast, you people don’t even acknowledge that he’s being a really nice dude. They went to Snooze! I’ve never been there but several girls I know won’t shut up about it. (“You’ve NEVER!!!! been to Snooze??” /Over the top ‘I’m shocked’ face/ “Omigosh what is wrong with you?!”) So yeah, that’s like a super nice thing to do. He’s probably going to take every disgruntled fan to breakfast at Snooze at some point, so just be patient and wait your turn and you’ll get an english muffin or something eventually. Then everybody is happy! And don’t try telling me this was just an awkward PR stunt that didn’t even go well because at that point you’re just grasping at straws. There’s no need to try to ruin an honest Snooze date. I hear Snooze is really good!

The interview I mentioned above caused a kerfuffle for a few reasons. Dick doesn’t know what he’s doing. Dick is good at business but doesn’t understand baseball. Dick’s unwavering commitment to an incompetent GM provides the franchise with no hope, blah blah blah.

Well let me ask you this, hot-shot: Have you ever run a multi-million dollar operation with one of your good buddies? Has that buddy ever been pretty crappy at his job? Did you have literally no idea how to replace him or where to look for replacements or even an understanding of why a replacement would be beneficial? No? Then again I ask you, WHY ARE YOU JUDGING THE MAN?! Firing your high-profile friends is probably hard, especially if you have absolutely no idea what would be the next logical thing to do after the firing.

Sure Dick refuses to acknowledge essentially a single problem with the franchise he owns. But maybe he’s just an optimist. Maybe he’s always thinking Nah, nah we’ll be alright. This team is actually really good. I don’t care what their record has been for the past 15 years. That’s an admirable quality as far as I’m concerned. Keep on the sunny side! If we would all just be as optimistic as Dick none of this would even be an issue. That seems like some important food for thought for all of you Dick haters.

And one more thing! Check out this super studly picture I found while writing this:

Do you really need more evidence that this is a man you can trust? I think that pose says it all.

So there ya go, upset Rockies fans. I’m here to tell you that everything is actually great. Dick Monfort is doing his best and he’s pretty awesome owner. So stop being so mean to him.

I don’t think he likes it when you’re mean to him.

Offto the weekly departments, which are all limited because I was “off the grid” (as they say) for pretty much the entire weekend…

Jose Canseco might be the biggest idiot on Twitter, which makes him a must follow. (He once got into an argument over gravity and dinosaurs with Bill Nye The Science Guy.) Anyway, I was just minding my own business at work yesterday when I learned he has two turtles named “Roid” and “Rage” and one of them has some really impressive bowel movements.

And finally, I don’t really have anything funny or sports related for you in this spot either. But my guy Sturgill Simpson was on Letterman last night performing my favorite song off his new album. You won’t hear it on the radio, but this is the best new country artist out there. Simply put, this dude is the shit:

Happy Tuesday everybody. Enjoy the All Star Game tonight. Root for the National League so the Rockies will have homefield in late October. Try not to vomit while watching everyone slobber over that American League shortstop with the .647 OPS. Thanks for reading. See ya next week.

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Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @TuesWithMitch.

Welcome to the 67th edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where we’re in the dog days of summer and nobody wants to read about the Rockies. So I’m discussing a different sport instead. One I don’t talk about much. Some good readin’ for ya this week. Let’s get into it…

Owwwww! His shoulder hit mah teeef! (Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

I haven’t written about the World Cup this year for a reason. I don’t care about soccer, but that shouldn’t mean I’m going to berate those of you that do (or pretend you do for a few days every four years).

So you’ll have to trust me that I’m not trying to be a troll with this post. I’m not trying to be Ann Coulter. But even the most reasonable man can only bite his tongue so long.

My World Cup commentary thus far has been limited to a cool video of fans reacting to an important United States goal, a Vine of some guy trying to eat another guy’s shoulder then flailing around pretending his poor teeth were hurt, and a puppet dog hilariously making fun of foreigners. But allow me to expand my outlook on soccer, if you will.

I realize that I’m a little late to the party with this, because when the USMNT was eliminated last Tuesday, it effectively ended all interest in the World Cup in our country. But (as a commenter dutifully pointed out last week) the loss also generated a ton of fan reaction praising our boys as heroes who had really made a statement that the United States has arrived in the soccer world to stay.

The reality of the situation is the USMNT played four games and went 1-2-1. They were eliminated in the round of 16. That’s heroic now? The president needs to call and say good job on not even making the freaking finals, semifinals, quarterfinals?

On an international scale, we suck at soccer. We always have and we always will. We suck because we don’t really give a damn. We never have and we never will.

People were excited about the World Cup not because they have a newfound love for soccer, but because of national pride (I am an advocate of U-S-A chants, after all), an excuse to weekday day drink, and the biggest factor, social media group think.

Social media was flooded with athletes and celebrities voicing their support on the job done by the #USMNT. For what? The team’s 1-2-1 performance? Or was it to help build their own brand, get a few retweets and Facebook likes and show that they’re in touch with pop culture and supportive of whatever you support?

This obviously goes far beyond famous athletes and other celebs. It became “the thing to do” for everybody. Countless Americans didn’t want to feel left out, so they posted a bunch of tweets, statuses, pictures and stupid memes about the #USMNT even though they literally couldn’t name one player on any team the day before the World Cup started.

Is soccer on the rise in the United States? I guess. Maybe. But if it is, it’s increasing from a tiny minority to a small minority. So congrats on that, soccer.

If one percent of the Americans that were talking about the World Cup on Twitter start attending MLS games, the league’s popularity would at least triple. (Obviously that’s a made up statistic, but it’s probably true and you get my point.) And that will certainly not happen. Raise your hand if you’re going to watch all 90 minutes* of whichever South American country plays whichever European country whenever they play.

If you’re raising your hand you are either lying, have ties to one of those countries, or are a hipster who feels it’s cool to be out of the mainstream because regular and popular sports are for, like… jocks. And athletes. And who wants to watch that?!

*Or 120 minutes? or 60? I actually have no idea how long a soccer game is supposed to be because the stupid clock moves the wrong way and just keeps going until everyone agrees that they’re too bored to continue. I think.

Another reason we heard about the World Cup so much is because the large sports media corporations are heavily invested in soccer. ESPN spent a ton on the World Cup broadcasting rights so they shoved it down our throats at every opportunity. I’ve always been kind of startled at the masses’ acceptance of caring about whatever ESPN tells them to care about. Soccer is the best example of that. Fox Sports will broadcast the Cup in 2018 so FS1 jumped in on the fun, too.

So again, I’m not just trying to troll soccer fans here and I wasn’t “rooting against” the U.S. It would have been nice to see them advance and do well because it would have been funny if we were better at a sport we don’t care about than the countries who actually do care. But that is definitely not the case.

And that’s okay.

Quite frankly I am indeed relieved that I don’t have to hear about it anymore or be subjected to games and highlights of flops and bites* and soccer bails sailing just wide of a giant net. (That’s literally what the highlights consist of. This guy fell down in the 20th minute. And here’s 30 seconds of missed shots. Then they had a “cool down break” so here’s a guy drinking water. Then a couple goals. That’s some edge-of-your-seat stuff right there!)

*When that guy tried to eat that other guy my first thought was “I don’t know how you people watch this stuff.” Then I found out it was his THIRD TIME gnawing on an opponent, which is odd but whatever, lots of people have strange fetishes. What I don’t get is how the person being eaten has never knocked him the hell out, or even gotten in his face. I’m not one to advocate violence, but if I’m at the bar and some dude digs his chiclets in to my shoulder, the situation will likely escalate. Can you imagine what would happen on a baseball field if Buster Posey flipped his mask off and chomped on Troy Tulowitzki’s calf when he stepped into the box? Soccer is weird, man.

Listening to talk radio during the United States’ amazing, 1-win “run” in the World Cup was a nightmare. Every local and national host started each discussion with, “Now, I’m a soccer novice” or “Now, I don’t claim to be a soccer expert”. Then why in the hell are you on the radio talking about it? Hey Mike Golic, would you like to chime in with some commentary on do-it-yourself gardening while you’re at it? Or maybe give some lessons on how to play the banjo? No, because you wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.

So back to the shallow end, futball. You’ve annoyed us all enough over the past month. I don’t look forward to you doing the same in four years.

That Teddy Roosevelt guy was pretty cool though. Maybe he’ll be back in 2018.

DJ LeMahieu and Troy Tulowitzki turned what might be the defensive play of 2014 on Wednesday. This is one of the best double plays I have ever, ever, ever seen.

That is majestic artistry.

The Lemahieu dive and flip all in one motion makes for an incredible play standing alone. But for Tulo to bare-hand the flip with his back to first base and one foot on second, then quickly and fluently spin 180 degrees and fire a fastball on the money… That’s next-level stuff. Zero other MLB middle infield combos get two outs out of that.

We all know the Rockies are irrelevant, but watching that infield play defense is one of the lone reasons to maybe think about the possibility of perhaps flipping over and watching a minute or two of latest debacle for the local nine.

This is just baseball players being dumb and having fun, but Vin Scully makes it worth watching.

I kind of hate that I like Vin Scully so much because I continue to dislike the Dodgers, but what can you do? Vin is the man.

And finally, here’s one for all you true United States soccer fans.

Those questions are hysterical. To be fair, Jimmy does this with a variety of topics, but let’s still acknowledge this as a true depiction of soccer in America.

Happy Tuesday everybody. Thanks for reading. See ya next week.

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Welcome to the 67th edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where I’m just killing time and gearing up for one of my favorite holiday weekends. By the time you knock out this blog we’ll almost be there. Let’s get into it…

Voting for the MLB All-Star Game ends Sunday night. Troy Tulowitzki leads all National League players in voting, which is good because he will likely end up being the Rockies’ only All-Star (although Franklin Morales is back in the rotation, so you never know). Justin Morneau and his 58 RBIs have a shot but that’s a loaded position. The Rockies were a bad team last year and had three guys start the All-Star Game. They are a bad team this year and may only have one representative on the entire roster. Anyway, here’s my ballot, which is naturally the 100 percent correct one:

Some fairly random thoughts on my ballot:

I went with Cabrera over Chicago’s Jose Abreu at first base in the A.L. because Cabrera has about 50 more at-bats, but either selection is fine by me.

There are like zero quality hitting A.L. shortstops. (That vote is pointless anyway because some guy from New York is going to win it.)

Nelson Cruz is going to win the DH spot, but it should actually be a coin flip between Victor Martinez and Edwin Encarnacion. (Cruz is a ‘roider so he’s off my ballot anyway.) Encarnacion gets my vote over Martinez due to his power numbers (25 HR, 64 RBI).

Two of the AL outfield spots are no-brainers. It will be interesting to see the third player selected. Brantley is having a deserving all-around season, but I could have also gone with Alex Gordon (KC), Adam Jones (BAL) or Brandon Moss (OAK).

As I mentioned above, the NL first base race is competitive with Goldschmidt, Adam LaRoche (WAS), Freddie Freeman (ATL), and Morneau. Goldschmidt has the best glove and is the best baserunner so he got the nod from me.

Second base in the N.L. is a toss-up between like 5 guys, but a few of them aren’t even on the ballot. Utley is going to win it anyway and should be the Phillies’ only representative, so what the hell.

Lucroy deserves to be the N.L.’s starting catcher, but as mentioned last week, he gets my vote because of this as much as anything else.

Todd Frazier isn’t in the top five in voting but he had an amazing June and deserves to start.

Tulo is the first half MVP, but he’s the leading N.L. vote-getter because he has ZERO competition from other shortstops.

Stud of the week:

Our stud of the week is America. (And for the love of God, please understand that “America” is not spelled “‘Merica” or “Murica”. I do not understand this fascination. Damn millennials, I tell ya.) Anyway, where else but America can this guy be considered the true damn American hero that he is?

Joey Chestnut, American hero.

You may scoff, but for years and years we had this competition. A competition to see who could eat the most hot dogs in a given time (or something like that, I’m not really sure to be honest). HOT DOGS! American hot dogs made out of pig tails and cow ears or whatever! But there was a problem. Some little guy from some other country kept eating more hot dogs than everyone in America. That is not cool with me. Not even close.

Enter Joey Chestnut. Problem solved. America is back on top. On top of what we do best. Thank you, Mr. Chestnut. Thank you for saving America.

The father of Nuggets’ draft pick Jusuf Nurkic. Zach Lowe described the Nuggets’ pick as “a giant Bosnian with a mean spirit and an even more giant father who is probably even meaner.” (Grantland)

Some other stuff the internet had to offer from the past week:

Triumph is back and he’s making fun of soccer and people who watch soccer. What more do you need on a Tuesday afternoon?

And finally, let’s talk about America some more. Unless you’re eating like 90 hot dogs in 30 seconds, it don’t get much more American than this:

Happy Tuesday everybody. Get outside on Friday and enjoy the hell out of your Independence Day. Keep the beer cold, the whiskey warm, the steaks medium rare, the fireworks cheap, the “U-S-A” chants constant, and the political discussions to a minimum. God Bless America. Thanks for reading. See ya next week.

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U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

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Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @MitchDHahn.